Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Heppner Heppner, OR

Heppner is a city in and the county seat of Morrow County, Oregon, and the 2020 census recorded its population as 1,187, down from 1,291 in 2010.

The 2020 census counted 533 households in Heppner, with 608 housing units in the city.

Heppner was originally called Standsbury Flats for George W. Standsbury, one of the first European-American settlers in the area, and it was founded in 1872 when Colonel Jackson Lee Morrow entered into a partnership with Henry Heppner and they built a store at the crossing of the present May and Main streets.

The city is named after Henry Heppner, a prominent Jewish-American businessman.

Heppner was designated the temporary county seat when Morrow County was created, narrowly defeated nearby Lexington in an 1886 election to determine the permanent county seat, and was incorporated on February 9, 1887.

On June 14, 1903, a flash flood on Willow Creek almost destroyed Heppner, killing an estimated 238 people, about a quarter of the city's population, making it the deadliest natural disaster in Oregon's history, with property damage reported at nearly $1 million.

The Willow Creek Dam at the outskirts of the city was finished in 1983.

The Historic Morrow County Courthouse was built in 1902-03, is one of the oldest continuously used courthouses in Oregon, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

Heppner sits in central Morrow County along Oregon Route 74, about 35 miles south of the Columbia River and 15 miles northwest of the Blue Mountains, and Route 74 forms part of the Blue Mountain Scenic Byway.

Heppner is nicknamed the Gateway to the Blues, stands at an elevation of 2,011 feet, and covers 1.24 square miles.